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As a business owner or blogger on Instagram you learn really fast that the "link in your bio" is prime real estate. Whether you're directing your followers to your services or products, leading them to your blog, or to read more of an article, your Instagram bio is where they're headed for more info! Back in the olden days i.e. a year or so ago, we only had the option to direct our followers to one link and we had to swap them every time we wanted to direct people somewhere else. Then services popped up that allowed you to create landing pages that highlighted multiple links and it was a GAME CHANGER! Suddenly, we didn't have to remember to swap out the link and options really opened up.

Enter today, and we're going to take that option a step further by building a custom landing page right inside your website. While these services are great, a lot of them don't allow too much customization and since we're in the branding industry, you know what we're going to say about brand consistency... it's important! So today, we're going to teach you how to build your own using Squarespace, because you know that is our thang! Helloooo customization and creativity options! So read on or scroll a little bit further down to watch the screenshare video.

Step 1:

Create a new page under the "Not Linked" section and give your page a title.

Step 2:

Add your first block, whether that be a text intro or adding buttons. I suggest thinking of this landing page with the inverted pyramid style in mind, which means you have the most important info up top and continue down with less urgent info. While you have a lot more flexibility with your own custom landing page you also don't want your followers to have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find what they're looking for. Keep your user experience at top of mind!

Step 3:

Add spacers to each side. While this step isn't totally necessary because all templates are responsive, it is a little easier to visualize how the page will look by adding spacers and pushing the content to the center of the page. You can see this step in the video below.

Step 4:

If you used stacked buttons on your landing page and would like to make the widths even, then I have a code for you! You can copy and paste the code below into the advanced settings of your page. To do this, you need to hover over the name of your page in your website panel and click settings, then click advanced, and then paste the code in the Page Header Code Injection.

The code above targets small-sized buttons so be sure to make sure the size correlates with the size you used on your page. So if you used small, use the code as is, or if you used medium or large swap out the text "small" in the code and add the applicable size. This is set for button widths of 250px, which I found worked well but you can also adjust if you'd like.

Step 5:

Once you have finished adding in blocks to your liking, publish your page! Then be sure to find out what your URL slug is, so that you can add the full url into your browser and then copy and paste that link into your Instagram profile!

You can also watch this full process below:

And that's it! A fully customized landing page for your Instagram account that you can edit any time you'd like. Have any questions? Drop us a comment below or shoot us a note and we're happy to help!

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There are a lot of reasons we love Squarespace at Bold & Pop -- Visually driven designs, responsive design, and versatile built-in features being just a few. Our top reason we love the platform (and our clients do too) is how user-friendly the back-end is compared to some of the alternative options. Afterall, it is this aspect that draws a lot of people to design their websites themselves on Squarespace. So that being said, if it's user-friendly and DIY-focused, why would you want to work with a web designer? We're taking on that topic for today's blog!

Taking Your Website Beyond Templates

While you can create a beautiful website straight from the templates on Squarespace, working with a designer allows you to go above and beyond. As Squarespace designers, we know the ins and outs of the templates and the options each provides. It's more than just selecting a template and filling in the blocks with your content, rather we select templates based on core features and then build you a completely custom and unique website. Designers can also assist you with optimizing your user experience and helping you organize and make the best use of your messaging and assets.

Beyond your template selection, one of the key things that can help set your Squarespace website apart from the templates is custom graphic elements. This is where a lot of people get held up on their DIY designs. Working with a designer will provide you with graphic design assistance and allow you to take your design beyond the standard templates. Consider creating custom slideshow or banner graphics, sidebar graphics and dividers.

Last but definitely not least, working with a designer will give you additional options for your website with custom coding. We use custom CSS coding on all of our client websites to tweak the features and get the result our clients are after. This can also be a consideration if you're using programs and other services that aren't directly integrated with Squarespace -- like ConvertKit. This is often another snag for DIYers where designers can add a lot of value to.

Maximizing Features & Optimizing Website

Because web design is our specialty, working with a designer will help ensure that you are taking full advantage of the features and uses for your website. You might not know the best way to highlight similar posts in your blog, or how to build an archive using summary blocks.. but your designer will! We can advise on the best set up for what you are trying to accomplish and then make it happen. There's a lot more than meets the eye of the basic features and settings and your designer will make sure you're getting the most out of your website.

Something else that is imperative with your website design is optimizing your responsive design and SEO. Squarespace is great because templates are automatically responsive, which means the designs with automatically adjust for best use whether your user is viewing your website on their desktop computer, tablet or phone. Same goes with your SEO. Squarespace has a lot of great built-in SEO features and a designer will be able to make sure everything is set up to help increase visibility for your business.

Freeing Up Your Time

One of the top reasons to work with a designer on your website is to free up some of your time. You know, so you can focus on running your business! While you can certainly build a beautiful website on your own in Squarespace, it takes time. Often more than some expect!

A lot of times, people will realize they're in a little over their head after going to DIY route, or they're simply not getting the look or feel they're after. Don't be afraid to call in the pros! While there will be a bit of an investment, we've found our clients have felt a huge relief when deciding to work with a designer which will save you a lot of headaches in the long run. Hiring a designer allows you to focus on the things you're best at, and let us take care of some of the heavy lifting to get the features and design where you'd like it. Then when everything is wrapped up with a nice little bow, we'll train you on the back-end of your website and the features included so you feel empowered to make minor edits yourself. That way, you're still getting the perks of the user-friendly platform of Squarespace that you'll be able to update on your own in the future, while also making the most of your time now.

Need help with a revamp or a full Squarespace redesign? Give us a shout so we can chat about how we might be able to help!

We all know.. Being an entrepreneur is hectic but add awesome mom, blogger, and consultant on top of that and you get Laura Kyttanen! We’ve had the pleasure of working with Laura on her (and her equally awesome husband’s) latest venture Pixsweet’s social media. So when Laura came to us looking for some help sprucing up her blog, we were thrilled to dig in! While it wasn’t a total redesign, this is a perfect example how a few little adjustments can make a huge impact and we can’t wait to give you a peek at how it turned out!

The Project:

The Design:

Our main focus was on making some functionality adjustments she would like to help organize her posts based on the various topics she covers on the blog and highlight all her areas of expertise! But when it came to the design, Laura gave us all the freedom in the world. She shared some inspiration for the colors and we were ready to roll!

After all this discussion, we focused on updating the following:

Create a simple logo to provide a stronger brand identity

Categorize blog posts and update blog title if necessary

Create Work With Me page

Update Contact page

Update blog sidebar design

Add related posts feature to highlight other blogs visitors may like

Update SEO

From our discussion with Laura and knowing her for several months, we had a pretty good idea on colors and a design that she would love! Take a peek at how the branding turned out:

Laura is also a multi-sensory brand consultant so incorporating the senses was important to her as well. We accomplished this by helping Laura develop a fun tagline of “Giving you a taste of my life” as well as developing the following categories for her blog posts:

Explore: LA Living

Experience: Business Life

Nourish: Healthy Living

Nurture: Family

Go: Travel

Now that we had the branding and categories down, it was time to get designing and updating! We switched the template to Skye which was very similar to the template she was previously using but we thought it was a better option for her. There are so many great features in this template for bloggers including the option to turn on related posts, have a prominent author bio, and an interactive post navigation to name just a few! Take a look at how we helped Laura bring her blog to life:

See what we mean when we say little adjustments can make a big difference? We mainly added the simple logo, adjusted the colors on the site, and adjusted the font used on the design side. These design adjustment paired with the functionality adjustments will allow Laura to continue to grow her personal brand by highlighting her various areas of expertise in multiple ways and allow her visitors to get a complete taste of her life! If you’re looking for some inspiration from an amazing mom, blogger, and entrepreneur, then you have to check out Laura’s blog!